Hold the phone, there, Mabel-- what's the deal with the latest change to Apple's free iPod technical support? The company altered its warranty terms once before, extending the iPod's original measly 90-day coverage for hardware (which practically incited riots and murderous rampages) to a full year, which was a welcome improvement; this time, however, customers lose a little, as complimentary phone support for their new iPods and minis gets pruned back something fierce. According to the new iPod FAQ (as noted by Think Secret), instead of the 90 days of free phone support that iPod users have enjoyed since the product's inception, buyers of the latest iPod models now only get free phone support for "a single incident" within the first three months of ownership.

When you think about it, though, that isn't all that bad, since we take "a single incident" to mean that once you call in with a particular problem, all the calls about it are free until that specific problem gets solved. And really, what are the odds of there being more than a single distinct problem with a particular iPod in the first three months, anyway? Either you've got the static defect or you don't; we haven't heard of any other problems arising. Then again, that's probably a moot point anyway, since the hardware is still covered for a full year, which means that you presumably wouldn't be charged for calling Apple about an iPod that burst into flame even if it was your second or third "incident." So really, this only affects 1) Windows users for whom Plug 'n' Pray has utterly failed, so they need help getting their iPods connected up in the first place, or 2) people who call in asking how you turn on the backlight or whether you can play Internet deathmatches of Brick.

Now, keeping a "single incident" free doesn't change anything for those folks who just need setup help, and obviously Apple wouldn't bother to change its policy unless it stood to benefit from doing so-- which implies that some new iPod customers were calling Apple a zillion times a day, asking whether it's okay to play their iPods during an electrical storm (answer: "yes"), whether they can brighten up their iPods by covering them with Crest Whitestrips (answer: "no"), and why their iPod-transferred Celine Dion songs sound crappy (answer: "because they're Celine Dion songs"). Whereas earlier iPod buyers were a more tech-savvy set, the iPod is a mass-market phenomenon, now, and it's selling to a lot of people with "00:00" flashing on their VCRs; the upshot is that Apple is actually losing money because people are more likely to call an 800-number than read online help files. So this change probably won't affect most people who have bothered to do the reading and have a legitimate reason to call technical support, but it ought to cut down on frivolous calls (and Apple's tech support costs) significantly.

Of course, the change would never had been necessary if people just did their homework and learned that the proper way to whiten an iPod is by brushing it twice a day with Close-Up Gel. But you can't change human nature...